


February 23, 2004

by DarlaBlack



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, F/M, Family, Fluff, Pre-IWTB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 12:32:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18261371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlaBlack/pseuds/DarlaBlack
Summary: It's Scully's birthday, but she's not very happy about it. Mulder has a surprise for her.





	February 23, 2004

**Author's Note:**

> set in a slightly happier universe than the one we got, where "William" never happened, but the rest of season nine did.

The floor was cold and the sink was full of dirty dishes. She hadn’t washed her hair in three days and kept her robe pulled tight around her, almost always. Like most of the places they’d been, this cabin didn’t feel much like home. She was tired, she was cold, and she missed her mother.

From the living room came a loud racket: a bucket of toys dumped out on the floor and a little voice saying “Oh maaaan.” His favorite game, and one for which she’d nearly broken an ankle more than once—scattered trains and legos moving as they would across the rough floor into unseen places. Scully took her cup of coffee into the room where her son played.

William smiled when he saw her. “What’s cookin good lookin?” He said, a new phrase from his father, and she smiled in spite of the fog that seemed to have settled around her.

“Watch those trains,” she said. “They like to hide, and I don’t want to step on them.”

The boy nodded and scooped to the far radius of his dump site.

This space wasn’t designed for wintering. The walls were too thin. A crack under the door led a frigid trail of air across the uninsulated wood floor. They had to keep the water on a drip at night or the pipes would freeze. Unthinking, Scully reached and pulled a small blanket around her son’s shoulders. Just in time, too, because the door flew open and Mulder came in, carrying a large armload of wood. She hurried to close the door behind him, for which he mumbled a thanks.

When he’d dropped the armload by the stove, sending a shower of splinters in a small rain around the pile, he brushed himself off and moved toward her. “Oh hey,” he said, as if just noticing her.

She smirked. “Hey.”

He tugged on the belt of her robe, pulled her up against him. “Today’s the day, huh? Big day? Big four-oh?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He took her in his arms and began dancing, rocking his hips and clasping her hand. “Is it everything you imagined?” There was no music so he hummed. “Is your life the dream you wanted?”

Behind her eyes, the sting of tears. He didn’t mean to be cruel, she knew, but it felt that way nonetheless. Scully pulled away from him and took her coffee mug back to the kitchen for a warm up. He followed a few seconds later, but she didn’t turn to meet his eyes.

“Scully,” he said.

She clenched and unclenched her fists beside the coffee pot.

“Dana, hey,” he tugged her around and tilted her face up, palms cool and a little rough. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, but this day had shaken her harder than expected.

“I’m just tired,” she managed.

“Tired of me?”

She shook her head, then let it fall against his chest. He smelled like musty wood and the dried lichen that grew on its outsides. He smelled like the earthy periphery of civilization: wild. She buried her nose in him. “Never you,” she said. “Of this.”

Mulder’s arms circled her, heavy and strong. It would only be a few moments before William plowed into their legs to complete their circle, demanding attention and probably snacks. Before that happened, though, Mulder tilted her face up and kissed her. “Have a bath,” he said. “Get dressed. I have a surprise.”

—

He made her pack a bag, and then they drove and drove while he refused to answer her  _Mulder, where are we going?_ over and again. He looked like the cat who ate the canary, eyeing her over the center console while he broke sunflower seeds between his teeth like they were green agents on their first case and not exhausted outlaws with a three-year-old. “You’ll see,” he said.

“We’re near Washington,” Scully observed. There was a tinge of worry in her voice. They hadn’t skirted this close to the federal government in two years of running, and she couldn’t imagine what would bring them here now. Mulder only made a non-committal sound of acknowledgement.

It was near dark, and William had long ago fallen asleep in the back seat when they finally made the turn off a country road. At the end of a long driveway was a small house, lit yellow from the inside, one porch-light glowing. Scully’s fear grew. They’d rarely made contact with anyone, and never this close to DC. “Mulder, who lives here?” She asked.

Again, he made no comment, but pulled to a stop in front of the house where there was one other car already parked: a newer model Subaru, gray. He turned in his seat to rub William’s knee. “Hey buddy. Time to wake up.” The child stirred and opened blue eyes. He stretched, yawned, made a whimpering sound of frustration at his stiff little limbs.

“Mulder, is it safe?”

He only smiled at her. “Yeah.” He climbed out and unlatched his son from the back seat, carrying William in one arm and the boy’s small duffel over the other shoulder. Scully checked the clip of her gun and left her bag in the car, but Mulder only shook his head at her. Free hand on her back, he led her up the steps.

“Where are we?” William asked.

Mulder kissed the boy’s cheek as he knocked on the door. “Home,” he said, watching Scully’s eyes narrow in suspicion.

Before she could question him, though, the door swung open and Maggie Scully stood before them. The older woman’s hands came to her mouth in joy and sadness and the (at last!) release of desperate anticipation. “Oh my God, Dana,” she said.

Scully’s face crumpled. “Mom?”

—

The inside of the house was warm and smelled of real food, not like the aluminum-tinged canned goods, warmed in an undersized microwave, that they’d grown so accustomed to. There was baked ziti and salad and fresh bread and even a  _cake_ —at the sight of which, William’s eyes had nearly bulged from his head.

After the two women had fallen into each other’s arms where they hugged and cried and cried and hugged and Mulder had cleared his throat and swiped at his own eyes, Maggie had scooped up her sleepy grandson to lavish him with two years worth of affection at once. Dana had turned to Mulder, grabbed his face with both hands, and kissed him hard, at which he’d laughed, but kissed her back soundly.

“How long were you planning this?” She whispered into his mouth.

He nibbled her bottom lip, kissed her nose. “About two months,” he said. “Happy birthday.”

The house was theirs. A real house in one place, just two short hours from Maggie. It had three bedrooms and a full kitchen and a barn out back. Dana Scully shook with the joy of it, could hardly eat her dinner without the tears coming again. They would stay a few days, then go back for their things, but Maggie (with the help of Walter Skinner) had brought many of their stored objects here: small domestic touches that reminded them of who they’d been, of the promise that had returned to their lives.

William slept in a room full of stars, of planets on his bedspread and dinosaur sheets that he’d bounced and bounced on, yelping with delight. Mulder pulled Scully to their bedroom, to their bed that would remain theirs, for the rest of their lives if they wanted. She was cast in soft light by the bedside lamp, eyes shining above her navy sweater. Mulder touched her face and the whole room hummed.

“This was the best birthday I ever had,” she whispered, unable to stop the subtle curl of her lips.

Mulder tugged at the marled cotton of her top. “It’s not over yet.”

“My mom’s just down the hall,” she said, a half-hearted warning, but let him tug the garment off anyway. She did the same for him, tugging and pushing at fabric, until they both stood naked in their very own room. His palms slipped over her breasts, pulled at her lower back so his hardening erection angled warm into the skin of her belly. He kissed and kissed her until she pulled him to the mattress, scooted back so he could lay atop her and press her down into soft cotton. She studied his face over hers while his fingers traced her nipples, brushed down her ribs, splayed across her thigh that lifted along his waist. There was a sprinkling of gray hairs near his temples, soft lines at his eyes: the trace evidence of their hard years together, and so beautiful. She arched her back to feel the skin of their middles touch and smiled when he did the same. His fingers dipped between her legs and came up slick.

“This is what you want too?” She asked him, knowing he’d understand she meant more than just her body: the house, the stillness, the solid ground beneath their feet.

“More than anything,” he said. His fingers dipped again and she gasped. They moved lower, moved inside her, and she clenched around him, slipped her hand to palm the silk of his own straining sex. “I love you,” he told her.

Scully’s breath caught. Her heart pounded; she raised her head to capture his lips while she angled his cock toward the apex of her legs. They were words he held dear, even now in their shared life. He parsed them out carefully, offering them like rare gems only when they could carry the proper weight of their meaning. He lived them every day in his gentle actions, but spoke them so seldom that they always felt like gifts. Scully captured them in her own mouth now, as she pulled his body into hers, answering with her skin and her bones and her quick-pulsing blood. The thought of their shared years, the tricksy slippage of time that made her feel old, drifted away under the weight of his body and his love. He’d found her a home, and with it they’d found a future.


End file.
